


Together

by HildyJ



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Blood, Childhood Memories, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Nudity, The Shire, hints of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 01:04:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7487280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HildyJ/pseuds/HildyJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's too hot to do anything so Thorin and Bilbo might as well stay in bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toastfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastfic/gifts).



> This was prompted by [Ophidiae](http://ophidiae.tumblr.com/) who wanted Thorin and Bilbo together in the Shire.
> 
> And I was inspired by [this art](http://nastyrutobuka.tumblr.com/post/140953003180/im-done-with-a-boring-job-and-i-wanted-to) by Ruto (NSFW but very innocent!) to write this fic.

There it was again. That tickling sensation on his bare calf, creeping from his heel to his knee, fluttering over his sweaty skin. Bilbo threw his other foot aimlessly at it, scratching it away with his big toe before rolling over in the bed once again. His earlier spot near the edge had been so wonderfully cool when he first found it but, like everything else this morning, it had soon become warm and damp.

Bilbo made another attempt at opening his eyes but was immediately discouraged by the blinding sunlight coming from Bag End’s open window. How could it already be morning? He had barely slept all night, his thin sheet feeling like a mountain of bear hides and every breath like sucking in the steam from a boiling kettle.

‘Good morning.’

Bilbo kept his eyes closed. ‘How can you already be up?’

Something clattered as Thorin made his way around the bed. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Me neither,’ Bilbo sighed, ‘and that’s why I’m still in bed, trying valiantly.’

He could hear the sound of fabric on fabric as Thorin pushed the sheet back on his side of the bed and another clatter as he put something down. The wood frame of the bed groaned and a shadow fell over Bilbo’s closed eyes, exchanging the greyish-pink of his almost translucent eyelids for a comforting black. 

Bilbo opened his eyes and smiled. ‘Hello.’

Thorin let his chest fall down onto the mattress as he gazed fondly at Bilbo. ‘Hello.’

In an easy movement, Bilbo’s arm rose up and bent around the back of Thorin’s head, pulling him closer. He could feel Thorin’s hands coming to rest around his jaw and neck as their lips met in a kiss. Bilbo closed his eyes and breathed in once before pulling away, nosing at Thorin’s cheek. ‘Did you get any sleep at all last night?’

Thorin pressed another kiss to the corner of Bilbo’s mouth. ‘Not much. What with the heat and lying next to a certain sighing, grunting and constantly rolling hobbit. I thought you were going to fall out of bed at one point.’

‘That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I’d hit my head and pass out,’ Bilbo murmured. ‘At least then I’d get some rest.’

Thorin chuckled, ducking his head down and breathing in Bilbo’s neck. ‘I made breakfast,’ he whispered against the warm skin.

‘Being brought breakfast in bed by a naked Thorin Oakenshield,' Bilbo said, pushing himself up to look over Thorin's shoulder at the inviting tray. 'If it wasn't for this insufferable heat, I'd say life couldn't be any better.'

Thorin rolled over, scooting to sit with his back against the headboard. He pulled the breakfast closer, careful not to jostle the teeming cups. 'I didn't know if you'd want tea or not.'

'Oh, yes please,' Bilbo said and took hold of one of the cups. He took a sip. 'You know, I once read something somewhere - or maybe I heard it from a travelling trader - well, anyway, that people down south, as far away as Harad, where they have a good deal more hot days than we have here in the Shire - well, they drink hot drinks all year round. And at every meal.'

Thorin shook his head. 'I wouldn't like that. A midday cup of tea on the hottest day of the year? Not for me.'

Bilbo adjusted a pillow to sit more comfortably against the small of his back. 'Maybe it helps with the heat in someway?' He fiddled with the ear of his cup. 'They must know what they're doing, otherwise they wouldn't do it.'

'That sounds like sensible Baggins logic to me. But unfortunately the world is run by other things apart from logic.' Thorin swallowed a mouthful of tea. 'There was probably some mad king hundreds of years ago who decreed that all of his subjects must drink tea at every meal or face the royal executioner's axe. And then what started from a place of fear became a habit which then became a tradition, and now nobody in that part of world can even think to start a meal without a pot full of steaming drink next to them,' Thorin finished with another swallow of tea.

Bilbo hummed indifferently as he swirled the last bit of tea around the bottom of his cup, watching as the tea leaves shifted and shaped with the movement.

Thorin let his head fall back, hitting the wooden headboard. 'I think today's going to be worse than yesterday, if it's this hot this early.'

Bilbo felt the tickle on his leg again. Letting his knee fall slightly to the side he saw a black fly lazily polishing its legs as it sat on the bony part of his shin. He waved at it, thrusting enough air in its direction to force it away and up to the ceiling where it flew in drooping circles around the wooden beams. Bilbo leaned further back into his pillows, nothing moving but his eyes as he followed its aimless journey.

'Bilbo?' Thorin’s head turned idly in his direction. 'Oh, I thought you were asleep.'

'No, I'm listening.' The fly had settled itself again on one of the beams; sitting near that shape in the grain which Bilbo had always thought looked like a horrified, screaming face. He remembered being a fauntling and coming into his parents' bedroom after a bad dream and being settled in between them. He felt like nothing could touch him then. Until he had caught sight of that terrible face staring down at him, crying out in pain and horror, and Bilbo started to fear that whatever had got hold of the person in the beam would soon get hold of him. He remembered how he'd squeeze his eyes shut, squeeze them until they almost hurt, and then he'd bury his face against his mother's neck, hoping that she could stop anything horrible that would get too close to the bed.

'Were you ever afraid of anything as a child?' He looked over at Thorin.

‘What?’

'Anything silly or nonsensical, I mean?'

'As a child?' Thorin blew out a breath as he placed their cups back on the tray. 'I don't-- oh, yes.' He chuckled. 'My father's cupboard. The one in his study.'

Bilbo turned onto to his side to look at Thorin. 'Really? Why?'

‘Because there was a warg in there.’ Thorin shook his head, still chuckling.

‘A stuffed one?’

‘Not even that.’ Thorin paused. ‘I remember playing on the floor in his study, setting out great battle scenes with some toy warriors my grandfather had given me. My father was working on something at his desk when he stood up and left the room on some brief business. I remember looking up from my toys and over at father’s cupboard – a dark and heavy thing filled with important matters of state – and getting a very definite and certain feeling that there was a live warg in there. And the next person who opened those cupboard doors was going the get mauled to a very painful death.’

‘Had you just heard about wargs for the first time?’

‘Maybe – I don’t recall much about but that very certain idea that a warg had somehow crept inside the mountain and was now hiding in my father’s cupboard, waiting to pounce.

Bilbo giggled. ‘And how long did that idea last? Till your father returned?’

‘No, longer than that. Even when I was close to my maturity, I still felt a slight tremble of fear down my spine every time I helped my father in his study and he sent me to get something from that cupboard.’

‘Is that why you moved to the other of side of world? To get away from that cupboard?’ Bilbo’s lips quirked upwards as he tilted his head towards Thorin.

Thorin chuckled. ‘You’ve found me out,’ he said as he handed Bilbo a piece of buttered bread.

Bilbo took it. ‘Any honey?’ he asked, looking towards the increasingly empty tray.

‘We used up the last of it yesterday.’

Bilbo leaned back against the pillow, eating his breakfast. His eyes swung lazily over the room, trying to find where that fly had got to now.

Both of them ate in silence, the only sounds coming from outside the open window – the buzzing of bugs and insects from a nearby field, a neighbour calling out to another, and the slow creaking of a cart being driven down a dirt road.

Thorin popped the last piece of bread into his mouth, ignoring the crumbs sticking to his damp chest. He stretched. ‘We should get up.’

Bilbo nodded. ‘We should.’

He could hear the clinking of the cups as Thorin put the tray down on the floor, stretching his legs more fully into the empty space it left behind.

‘It’s only going to get hotter, after all – there’s no chance of getting any more sleep today,’ Thorin said, his voice slow and soft.

‘You’re right,’ Bilbo said as he pushed his bottom downwards, stretching out alongside Thorin.

‘And we really should go to the market today.’ Thorin reached out, stretching out his arm above Bilbo’s head.

‘Absolutely,’ Bilbo said, turning more into Thorin’s side.

They sighed contentedly as they lay there together, soft limbs and heavy heads sinking more and more into the mattress. 

 

X—X

 

‘There’s a fly in here.’

Bilbo looked up from his book. ‘I know.’

The morning sun had finally passed over their east-facing bedroom window and was now hanging directly over Bag End, supplying it with a slow and steady roasting. The sheets of their bed now had that slightly damp quality to them, the wrinkles firming up from their steaming bodies.

The used cups and plates from breakfast and second breakfast were still sitting on Thorin’s bedside table while he had claimed the wooden tray for his writing, lying on his belly while he composed his letters.

‘It keeps landing on my backside,’ he said, ‘closer and closer to the crease every time.’

‘I don’t blame it,’ Bilbo smirked, putting down the open book on his chest as he looked towards the tempting globes.

‘Ha-ha,’ Thorin said drily, turning his head over his shoulder to look at Bilbo. ‘Well, I wish it wouldn’t. I drop another ink blot on the paper every time it settles back onto me. Dís will think I wrote this after four tankards of the strongest ale the Shire has to offer.’

‘Maybe you should try writing your family after a few ales,’ Bilbo mused, ‘might make them more entertaining.’

‘My letters _are_ entertaining,’ Thorin protested as he flexed and released the muscles in his buttocks, hoping to dislodge the persistent fly yet again.

‘I still remember those two whole pages you wrote to Kíli, describing the handle of your newly purchased axe for chopping wood.’ He raised one eyebrow at Thorin. ‘Thrilling stuff, to be sure.’

‘He wanted to know about that axe handle!’ Thorin protested. ‘He said he was going to order one similar to it from the Erebor craftsmen since I was so fond of mine.’

‘I know.’ Bilbo rolled over and kissed Thorin’s damp shoulder. ‘I’m just teasing you. You know I love your boring letters.’

Thorin huffed before shifting his hips again, a grimace stealing over his face.

‘Is it back again?’ Bilbo looked down Thorin’s body to where a small black thing was nestled in one of the lower back dimples.

Thorin sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘Time to draw up some firm limits, I think.’ Bilbo wiggled down the bed before seating himself astride Thorin’s thighs. The fly took to the air shortly at this sudden movement before swooping down again and making itself at home on the swell of Thorin’s left buttock. ‘You see,’ he said, addressing himself to the fly with mock formality, ‘in this bedroom only two people have access to this fine piece of dwarf meat.’ He could hear Thorin chuckling as he continued, ‘and that is Thorin Oakenshield, with whom you’re only too, too familiar, and yours truly, Bilbo Baggins, son of Belladonna and Bungo. Now,’ he raised one hand, ‘kindly buzz off!’ The hand came down, lightly swatting the fleshiest part next to the fly which promptly flew away.

‘Ah!’ Thorin called out, his chest rising up from the bed in surprise. ‘What was that?!’

‘Me giving the fly a warning of what happens if it doesn’t behave.’ Bilbo followed the fly with his gaze until it landed on the breakfast plates, busying itself with the leftover bread crumbs.

‘Well, give me a warning before you do that again.’ Thorin shook his head before checking his letter for any new ink blots.

‘Sorry,’ Bilbo murmured, hurriedly rubbing the pads of his fingers over the pinkish skin. ‘I got carried away with my joke. Did I hurt you?’

‘No.’ Thorin glanced back over his shoulder. He shifted his hips, angling them closer to Bilbo. ‘But keep doing that.’

‘This?’ Bilbo rubbed a bit more firmly, kneading circles into the muscle.

‘Yes…’ Thorin breathed, arching as much as he could into Bilbo’s hand. ‘More…’

Bilbo leaned forward onto his knees, resting more fully on Thorin’s thighs as he used both hands to grab and hold Thorin’s bum, digging in with his fingers as he did. With every pass of his hands, his fingertips were getting closer and closer to Thorin’s crease, teasing the sensitive skin there. He could hear his own breathing quickening as he felt how readily and vocally Thorin responded to his touch.

The inside of his thighs were already slipping against Thorin’s legs, a good deal of sweat pooling where their skin was touching. And Bilbo’s mounting excitement also brought with it an overheating brow and a stifling warmth in his middle. His hands slowed as he felt sweat drops forming at the roots of his hair. The heat which had been stifling before was now becoming unbearable.

‘Bilbo?’ Thorin’s voice sounded.

‘Yes?’ Bilbo sat still where he was, though most of all he wanted to throw himself back onto the cooler sheets.

‘It’s nice… what you’re doing but…’ Thorin trailed off.

‘Too warm?’

‘ _Much_ too warm,’ Thorin responded, relief colouring his voice.

Bilbo fell sideway onto the bed, wiping his sweaty body against the sheets. They both lay there in silence, their breaths slowing as the excitement seeped from their bodies.

‘Well,’ Thorin finally said, ‘at least the fly’s gone for now.’

Bilbo hummed before rolling to his side of the bed and sitting up. ‘I’m going to get some lunch for us.’ He scratched the drying sweat on his inner thigh as he looked back at Thorin. ‘Give you some peace and quiet to finish that letter as well, alright?’

Thorin smiled up at him. ‘Alright.’

 

X—X

 

Bzzzt-bump.

‘It’s still going,’ Thorin said as he came back from the bathroom to stretch out alongside Bilbo on the bed.

Bzzzt-bump.

Bilbo looked up at the open bedroom window. ‘I wonder if that hurts – hitting the windowpane again and again.’

Bzzzt-bump.

‘Why doesn’t it just move a bit? Freedom and the open air is within reach if it would just try flying two inches to the left.’

Bzzzt-bump.

‘Such is the folly of flies,’ Bilbo answered, lulling his head back and forth on his pillow. His book had been discarded some time ago along with Thorin’s finished letters and the plates from lunch. 

Now the two of them lay splayed on the bed. That particular lethargy caused by a day of doing nothing had already taken hold of their bodies. They felt heavy and slow, every movement of their limbs was like a struggle against the pull of the mattress.

Bilbo was close to nodding off when he felt a touch against the smallest finger of his left hand. He heard Thorin’s voice.

‘I never noticed this scar before.’

Bilbo didn’t even have to look to know what he was talking about. ‘Strange - I’ve had it longer than I’ve known you.’

The tip of broad finger followed the thin, silvery scar upwards from the first to the second knuckle. ‘Looks like a fine cut. A knife?’

Bilbo opened his eyes. ‘A pocket knife. My first one, given to me by my grandfather. He thought it would teach me to be responsible. And after the first accident I suppose it did – in a way.’

‘Tell me?’

Bilbo paused, considering. ‘One of my mother’s candle sticks had a terrible habit of dripping wax,’ he said, ‘ and building up this thick, white base of big globs of hardened wax. And I got it into my head that I wanted to make my mother happy by cleaning it for her.’

‘With your new pocket knife?’

‘Jabbing and poking at the thing with no care for where my fingers were in location to the sharp edge and…’ Bilbo made a high-pitched hiss. ‘You know how hand wounds bleed like the devil? Blood everywhere, the first time in my short life I’d ever seen so much blood. Ran screaming to my mother, of course.’

Thorin breathed a low laugh. ‘And she patched you up so you lived to tell the tale.’

‘And confiscated my knife but gave me stern lecture in return.’

Thorin’s caught loosely hold of Bilbo’s fingers, bringing them up to his mouth for a kiss. ‘I’m glad she did.’

A pleased sound rumbled in Bilbo’s throat before he turned more fully to face Thorin. ‘And what of your numerous scars? Any interesting stories to be had?’ His hand fell from Thorin’s grip and trailed downwards over Thorin’s shoulders and chest, searching for uneven spots.

Thorin’s side shivered. ‘That tickles.’

Bilbo’s finger circled a round scar. ‘This one?’

‘Goblin spear,’ Thorin answered shortly.

The finger brushed over Thorin’s belly, finding a long, jagged scar slashing through the hairs. ‘And this?’

‘Goblin sword.’

Bilbo blew out a heavy breath. ‘You’re being very boring.’ He let his head fall down to rest against Thorin’s chest. ‘I told you about my scar.’ He was aware of the whinging note in his voice but didn’t feel like correcting it.

‘Your scar came with an adorable childhood story attached. Most of these…’ Thorin’s hand brushed down his own middle, slow and measured as he mirrored Bilbo’s earlier journey. ‘I’d rather not remember.’

Bilbo shut his mouth, holding back whatever rebuttal he had prepared, and he pursed his lips instead, feeling the black, wiry chest hair tickle his nose as he did. 

He could feel Thorin’s hand on his head, playing with his curls, pulling them out one by one and letting them spring back into their original shape. The fingers kept moving slowly and methodically over his scalp - from the nape of the neck to the slope of his forehead. Here, Thorin stopped his exploration.

Bilbo knew why he stopped. ‘You’re not going to ask?’ He could feel Thorin’s fingers at the edge of it, barely touching the uneven skin hidden just above his hairline.

‘I know what it is,’ Thorin murmured. ‘I still remember when I first saw it.’

‘You know what I said about hands?’ Bilbo spoke quietly. ‘Well, heads are even worse. All that blood… It had hardened into my hair when I woke up on Ravenhill. Took two buckets of water and a quarter bar of soap to get it out again.’ Bilbo laughed humourlessly. ‘And then when I finally saw the thing itself… it was so small! All that fuss and bother over such a small wound. Still left a scar, though.’

Thorin’s fingers felt firm around his head. ‘I should have killed that cave filth myself.’

‘Maybe you did,’ Bilbo said, ‘I can’t give a decent description since I didn’t exactly get a good look at him. Only his club coming towards me.’ He craned his head back, looking up into Thorin’s eyes. ‘Goblin club,’ he said shortly with an ironic twitch of an eyebrow.

Thorin’s eyes softened as he looked down at him. The fingers relaxed and he went back to pulling lightly at Bilbo’s curls.

Bilbo made to speak some more when Thorin’s low voice interrupted him. 

‘I still can’t talk about it.’

‘I know.’ Bilbo placed a small kiss just south of Thorin’s armpit. ‘I know.’ 

The quietness flowed around them, covering them as they lay there together, each of them both thinking and not thinking of what had happened at Erebor. Even in the Shire, in the height of summer, in their shared bed, that winter would never quite leave them.

Bilbo raised his head to look towards the window. ‘Have you seen the fly lately?’

Thorin made a quick survey of its usual haunts: the plates, the mattress, the wooden beams in the ceiling. ‘No.’

Bilbo looked back at Thorin. ‘Do you think…?’

‘It finally made it?’

‘It finally cracked the riddle of the half-open window!’ Bilbo declared, mirth colouring his voice.

Thorin’s arm came down around Bilbo, pulling him even closer. ‘You know, I think I’m going to miss that little fellow. We have spent almost an entire day with it after all.’

‘Being a bloody nuisance all day, you mean.’ Bilbo rubbed his nose against Thorin’s chest. ‘I prefer it when it’s just the two of us – together.’

Thorin’s chest rose and fell in a deep breath, lifting Bilbo’s head with it. 

‘We’re lucky,’ he finally said, whispering it into the quiet room.

But Bilbo heard him all the same. ‘Yes,’ he answered because he could think of no more fitting reply.

Even though he couldn’t see his face, Bilbo heard Thorin swallowing hard, a slow and deep gulp coming from his throat and he knew not to say anything more. He waited, feeling the muscles in Thorin’s chest under his cheek as they contracted and relaxed, holding in whatever Thorin had pushed down.

Thorin took another quick breath before speaking. ‘I’d like a bath – a cool one. How about you?’

Bilbo dared to look up at him, seeing how his eyes shone wetly before being hurriedly blinked away.

‘Me, too,’ he answered softly.

Thorin made to get up from the bed, waiting for Bilbo to lift his head before sitting up completely. ‘I’ll get one ready for us, shall I?’ He glanced down at Bilbo.

Bilbo hummed. ‘And I’ll clear up things in here, change the sheets and such. They probably need it after today.’

Thorin stretched as he stood up and went around the bed, heading for the door. Just as he passed him, Bilbo sat up and called after him.

‘I love you.’ 

Thorin didn’t hesitate. With a half-turn between the bed and the door, he looked back at Bilbo. ‘I love you,’ he said with a small smile, pausing for a beat before turning back and going out the door.

Though the heat was still stifling and the bed was full of crumbs and damp with sweat, Bilbo went about his work with an irrepressible grin, looking forward to his cooling bath with Thorin – the two of them together.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](http://hildyj.tumblr.com/)


End file.
